Evidence of meeting #19 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was drugs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Well, were you a candidate in the election on October 15?
Beyond Prohibition Foundation
I was a candidate in the election, who did resign.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
So you did resign, but you were not asked to resign.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
So why did you resign as a candidate for the New Democratic Party?
Beyond Prohibition Foundation
As I explained at the time, I didn't want to be a distraction for the party in an election campaign that I thought was focused on more serious issues than whether or not, as the campaign manager for the B.C. Marijuana Party some years earlier, I had engaged in marijuana use.
Conservative
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Now, if you do in fact support the three tenets of legalize, control, and discourage--and you and I talked in Vancouver about the 1920s when alcohol was subject to prohibition in the United States--
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
--you'll agree with me that the legalization of alcohol has done nothing to discourage the use and in fact abuse of alcohol in the United States of America.
Beyond Prohibition Foundation
I will agree that the criminal justice policies of the United States and this country have had very little effect on the use of drugs or alcohol, either in this country or the United States, historically. That's correct.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
So you'll agree that cessation of prohibition with respect to alcohol did not result in discouragement.
Beyond Prohibition Foundation
I agree that the criminal justice policies of the United States and Canada with respect to drugs and alcohol use have very little to do with whether or not people actually use drugs or alcohol. The good news is that the ending of alcohol prohibition dropped the homicide and violent crime rates substantially, and it also reduced the power and influence of organized crime, goals I hope we share.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
We do.
And beyond prohibition and/or your own personal use, the elimination of prohibition of currently banned substances is not, in your view, limited to cannabis--marijuana.
Beyond Prohibition Foundation
No. It's a good first step, because we arrest, currently, some 50,000 people a year for simple possession of cannabis. I think that's a tragic waste of resources and a tragic visitation of consequences upon those people. It's a good first step, but if you want to get serious about ending the power and influence of organized crime, you're going to have to end the drug trade, and the only way to do that is to end prohibition.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
So you would support the end of prohibition for methamphetamine.
Beyond Prohibition Foundation
I would support a system of non-criminal regulated access and control. That doesn't mean that you're going to be able to buy it at the corner store; it means that the government is finally going to take control of this substance instead of ceding its responsibility to gangsters.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
So in fact you're not here simply to speak out against Bill C-15. You would support the repeal of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Beyond Prohibition Foundation
I would support the repeal of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and its replacement with a system of regulated control of production, sale, and access, rather than our current system, which leaves those in the hands of the black market.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Thank you.
Judge Paradis, I do have a question, but you can add your comments to that.
You talked about the robotic function of mandatory minimum sentences. But this is not, as my friend Ms. Davies suggested last week, a radical approach. Minimum mandatory sentences have existed since the inception of the Criminal Code, with respect, for example, to first-degree murder.